The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia

author

Paul Hudak

pages

363

publisher

Cambridge University Press

rating

9

reviewer

Isaac Jones

ISBN

0521644089

summary

Learn to program in a functional style in Haskell by implementing graphics, music, and robots simulations.

As the title implies, The Haskell School of Expression introduces functional
programming through the Haskell programming language and through the use of graphics and music. It serves as an effective introduction to both the language and the concepts behind functional programming. This text was published in 2000, but since Haskell 98 is the current
standard, this is still a very relevant book.

Haskell's standardization process gives us a window into two different facets of the community: Haskell is designed to be both a stable, standardized language (called Haskell 98), and a platform for experimentation in cutting-edge programming language research. So
though we have a standard from 1998, the implementations (both compilers and interpreters) are continually evolving to implement new,
experimental features which may or may not make it into the next standard.

For instance, the Glasgow
Haskell Compiler has implemented a meta-programming environment
called Template Haskell. Haskell is also easy to extend in directions that don't change the
language itself, through the use of Embedded Domain-Specific
Languages (EDSLs)
such as WASH
for web authoring, Parsec for parsing,
and Dance
(more of Paul Hudak's work) for controlling humanoid robots.

Before we get too far, I should offer a disclaimer: The Haskell
community is rather small, and if you scour the net, you may find
conversations between myself and Paul Hudak or folks in his research
group, since I use some of their software. That said, I don't work
directly with Hudak or his research group.

In fact, the small size of the Haskell community is a useful feature. It
is very easy to get involved, and folks are always willing to help
newbies learn, since we love sharing what we know. You may even find
that if you post a question about an exercise in The Haskell School of Expression , you'll get a reply from the author himself.

I consider this book to be written in a "tutorial" style. It walks
the reader through the building of applications, but doesn't skimp on
the concepts (indeed, the chapters are meant to alternate between
"concepts" and "applications"). In some ways, the code examples make
it a little difficult to jump around, since you are expected to build
upon previous code. The web site provides code, however, so you can
always grab that and use it to fill in the missing pieces.

For readers who wish to use this book as a tutorial, and to
implement all of the examples (which is highly recommended), I suggest
that you grab
the Hugs interpreter and
read the User's
Guide while you're reading the first few chapters of
The Haskell School of Expression. Hugs is very portable, free, and easy to use. It
also has an interface with Emacs.
Unfortunately, some of the example code has suffered from bit-rot, and
certain things don't work out-of-the-box for X11-based systems. The
bit-rot can be solved by using the "November 2002" version of Hugs.
This is all explained on SOE's web page.

The Haskell School of Expression should be very
effective for programmers who have experience in more traditional
languages, and programmers with a Lisp background can probably move
quickly through some of the early material. If you've never learned a
functional language, I highly recommend Haskell: Since Haskell is
purely functional (unlike Lisp), it will more or less prevent
you from "cheating" by reverting to a non-functional style. In fact,
if you've never really looked at functional programming languages, it
may surprise you to learn that Haskell has no looping constructs or
destructive assignment (that is, no x = x + 1). All of the tasks
that you would accomplish through the use of loops are accomplished
instead through recursion, or through higher-level abstractions upon
recursion.

Since I was already comfortable with recursion when I started this
book, it is hard for me to gauge how a reader who has never
encountered recursion would find this book's explanation of the concept. The Haskell School of Expression
introduces recursion early on, in section 1.4. It is used in examples
throughout the book, and if you follow along with these examples, you
will most certainly be using it a lot. The introduction seems natural
enough to me, but I note that Hudak does not give the reader any extra
insight or tricks to help them along. Not to worry, though; recursion
is very natural in Haskell and the reader may not even notice that
they are doing something a little tricky.

The use of multimedia was a lot of fun for me, and should quickly
dispel the myth that IO is difficult in Haskell. For instance, Hudak
has the reader drawing fractals by page 44, and throughout the book,
the reader will be drawing shapes, playing music, and controlling
animated robots.

Any book on Haskell must be appraised for its explanation of
monads in general and IO specifically. Monads are a purely
functional way to elegantly carry state across several computations
(rather than passing state explicitly as a parameter to each
function). They are a common stumbling block in learning Haskell,
though in my opinion, their difficulty is over-hyped.

Since input and output cause side-effects, they are not purely
functional, and don't fit nicely into a function-call and recursion
structure. Haskell has therefore evolved a way to deal safely and
logically with IO through the use of monads, which encapsulate mutable
state. In order to perform IO in Haskell, one must use monads, but
not necessarily understand them.

Some people find monads confusing; I've even heard a joke that you
need a Ph.D. in computer science in order to perform IO in Haskell.
This is clearly not true, and this book takes an approach which I
whole-heartedly agree with. It gets the reader using monads and IO in
chapter 3 without explaining them deeply until chapters 16 (IO) and 18
(monads). By the time you get there, if you have heard that monads
are confusing, you might be inclined to say "how is this different
from what we've been doing all along?" Over all, I was pleased with
the explanation of monads, especially state monads in chapter
18, but I felt that the reader is not given enough exercises where
they implement their own monads.

If you're worried that drawing shapes and playing music will not
appeal to your mathematic side, you will be pleased by the focus on
algebraic reasoning for shapes (section 8.3) and music (section 21.2),
and a chapter on proof by induction (chapter 11).

After reading this book you will be prepared to take either of the
two paths that Haskell is designed for: You can start writing useful and elegant tools,
or you can dig into the fascinating programming language research
going on. You will be prepared to approach arrows, a newer
addition to Haskell which, like monads, have a deep relationship to
category theory. Arrows
are used extensively in some of the Yale Haskell group's recent work.
You will see a lot of shared concepts between the animation in
The Haskell School of Expression and Yale's "Functional
Reactive Programming" framework, Yampa. If you like little languages,
you'll appreciate how useful Haskell is for embedded domain-specific
languages. It may
be even more useful now that Template Haskell is in the
works. Andrew
Cooke described Purely Functional Data Structures as
a great second book on functional programming. In my opinion,
The Haskell School of Expression is the great first book
you're looking for.

but chugging mountain dews and microwaving hot pockets are things that have to be learned through experience. Books are always a great source, but the lifestyle behind the teachings of the book can't be taught.

I haven't got the exact figures, but I reckon 95% of all operating systems out there must be a version of Windows. There must be SOME reason alternative OSes are not so popular.

Alternative OSes are only good in theory. Sure, you can easily get a basic install up and running, but they depend too much on arcane instructions. The OS will ultimately be used by a human; humans are visual, remember?

Thus, there's a MASSIVE usability loss when an alternative OS is used by any normal person. Because Windows is best adapted to how humans think and work. That's why we should stick to Windows.

The day someone actually invents an alternative OS that a normal person can use, we could start promoting these fringe languages. Till then, let's keep Linux as part of CS811.

(My apologies, I don't mean to be insulting, just point out the flaws in the argument with some good old sarcasm.)